Painting Fake Fir Wood Grains

Find a piece of fir wood board — or a couple boards — to duplicate. The boards should be gold with long brown grains. This will give you an idea of what fir wood grains look like. Study the color of the boards. The lightest color you see on the board will be the lightest color of paint you use, while the darkest color on the board will be the darkest color you use. The lightest color should be a gold, while the darkest will be a brown.

Paint the base coat. The base coat may be a flat, pre-made gold color, or you may mix the paint from yellow, brown and white. Mixing the color will be more difficult but the end results will be more rich and complex. If you mix the colors yourself, plan to play with the proportions a bit. You may practice on illustration board. Wait for the base coat to dry.

Paint the wood grains on, using a thin, rounded paintbrush to paint individual lines, or use a fan brush to paint many lines at once. Study the wood grains on the real fir boards. Fir wood grain is mostly long and straight, with a few diagonal wood grains in between long straight wood grains. Wait for the paint to dry.

Glaze over the wood grain using a thinned coat of base paint. Paint this glaze over the wood grain you painted in Step 4. The glaze should be thin enough to allow the wood grain to show through, but dark enough to soften the effect of the wood grain.